


The End of the Beginning

by ladyofbrileith



Series: The Party Has Now Begun [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Crack, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofbrileith/pseuds/ladyofbrileith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia's been away at an academic conference, leaving Peter in charge of the kids. But she's coming home tonight, and he wants to be ready. </p><p>If only the kids would cooperate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Complete and Utter fluff, I admit, which is not my usual style. But I offered fic requests, and the Lydia to my Peter asked for "Mommy & Daddy Pydia with Lydia pregnant with their second or third child and a totally cute baby belly."
> 
> So that is what she got, because I adore her to pieces. <3
> 
> Also for Future Fic trope in Trope Bingo. 
> 
> [If you want the full text of Peter's fairy tale story, it's posted in this series as ["There's Gonna be Some Changes in the Way This Story Goes."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/916308) ]
> 
> [Derek intentionally left un-paired for this fic because of cross-over this might fit into, but feel free to imagine he's with anyone you want and they're just not around tonight. ;-)]

The first time Peter Hale had a staring contest with a smaller creature was the night Lydia showed up with Prada—bag and dog—in hand at his loft after getting back from a haunted motel. Her mother was out of town, and she declared she wasn’t staying in that house alone as she’d swept in and promptly taken over his apartment.

Admittedly, he’d been more than happy to welcome girl and bag in, but he and the dog had to get a few things straight. Like who was the Alpha in his own home, if not his pack. He’d been victorious, naturally.

That same battle of wills was currently being reenacted, though this time with a three year old with dark auburn pigtails and bright blue eyes. Honestly, he’d thought they had this sorted (Lydia obviously was in control, he wasn’t stupid), but he’d thought he at least came in second.

“Just. One. Bite,” he ground out, glaring into eyes far too much like his own—in color and expression.

“No.”

“You have to eat.”

“No.”

“Caitlin Lara Hale, you will eat this or…” What exactly could he legitimately threaten a three year old with? “Or Uncle Derek will not play horsey with you.”

From across the table, Derek snorted. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Or work.”

Peter shot him a look. “You are not supposed to be undermining me here.”

Glancing up from the paper he was reading, Derek just smirked.

“I hate you,” Peter muttered.

Caitlin chewed on her lip and tilted her head, looking between the two men with considering eyes, then back to her father. “No.”

Peter took a breath and brought out the big guns. “Mommy will be home soon. Don’t you want to show her what a good girl you’ve been all day?”

Caitlin widened her eyes a little bit, and Peter could swear he saw a wicked gleam in them before she smiled sweetly at him, all innocence. “Mommy says good girls isn’t fun.”

Derek almost fell out of his chair laughing.

*          *          *

He had more luck with Daniel, but Daniel was all of eighteen months and torn between staying upright on two legs and chewing up pillows when he tumbled onto four. He followed anyone in the pack around when he was free to and tried to do the same when on his lead line which ended up with him tangled hopelessly in it.

_“Do you really keep your son on a leash?” Melissa McCall had asked one afternoon when she’d stopped by with lunch for the boys who were adding an addition on to the reconstructed Hale house._

_“It’s not a leash,” Peter said with a sigh. “People have their kids on them all around Disneyland and in parks and whatever. It lets them have the illusion of freedom while keeping them safe.”_

_“It’s a leash, Peter.”_

_“Have you ever tried chasing a half wolf-cub-half-toddler through the woods when he’s after a rabbit?”_

_Melissa stared at him and Peter shrugged, looking innocent as he took a sip of the lemonade she’d brought._

_She clearly wanted to ask if he was serious, then just as clearly decided she really didn’t want to know. And possibly reevaluated asking Scott and Isaac if they were thinking about kids soon._

_His job here was done. The boys could thank him later._

With his overwhelming desire to be one of the big boys, Daniel was easy to bribe into finishing every bite of his dinner. All Peter had to do was growl a little playfully and the boy would shriek with laughter and try to growl back. Peter would tell him he had to eat if he ever wanted to be able to growl properly, and Daniel would swallow every bite fed to him.

If Peter had to spend the rest of the evening pretending to be scared when his son growled, so be it.

*          *          *

“Fine. _I’ll_ play horsey with you if you will just eat your dinner.” Peter’s gaze was positively pleading.

Caitlin sucked her fingers into her mouth, before saying around them, “No.”

“I am pretty sure Stiles taught her to say ‘no’ just to spite me.”

“Probably,” Derek remarked, now not even pretending to be reading, but watching the interplay with interest.

“You should have a talk with him about that.”

“Yeah, no.”

Peter looked up sharply. Derek smiled back innocently.

“All right. Time to get serious.” Peter focused back on his daughter, almost a little desperate. “What will it take to get you to eat your dinner?”

You were never supposed to resort to letting yourself be extorted like that, but it wasn’t like he was a fan of the rules, and the clock was rapidly edging toward six.

“Want Scott,” Caitlin pronounced.

“Who doesn’t?” Peter muttered, head dropping to the table in defeat.

*          *          *

Isaac was far more sympathetic than Derek, and had Scott out at the house fifteen minutes after Peter called. Fifteen minutes after that, with Caitlin’s plate sparkling clean, Derek tsked and shook his head at Peter who flipped him off before scooping Daniel (who’d fallen asleep on the sofa, little fangs in a pillow) into his arms and herding his errant daughter upstairs. After he deposited Daniel in his crib and while he got her ready for bed, she told him all about the wedding she and Scott were going to have when she “got growed up,” and made him sing her the song that he and Mommy had danced to at their wedding, before tucking herself against his side with a sleepy yawn.

Four times through _The Poky Little Puppy_ (who Caitlin made him call Daniel), and one story about the fairy princess who woke the big bad wolf from sleep with one kiss and turned him into a prince (sort of) after a lot more of them, Caitlin was asleep with her head on his stomach, fingers curled in his shirt and clutching on tightly.

Peter glanced up to find Cora hanging around in the doorway watching them. He arched an eyebrow, and she gave him a little smile before slipping away.

“I like that one…” Her voice whispered back to him.

He smiled at her, then smiled more as he caught the scent he’d been waiting for all day.

“I like that one, too,” Lydia whispered from the doorway, framed in the glow of the hall light.

“Oh, do you?”

“Mmhmm…though I might need a reminder on how it goes…”

Peter held up his hand. “One minute…” Glancing down, he tried to figure out how to disentangle himself from Caitlin without waking her up. Staying where she was, Lydia bit back a laugh, not wanting to wake her either. It took some effort, but he was nothing if not resourceful, and he finally made it to the doorway, pulling it partially closed behind him before gathering his wife into his arms. “I missed you.”

“Hmmm…and yet there is not a trail of roses leading from the door to the bed,” Lydia said with a sigh and a little shake of her head.

“No, but…there are two children fed, bathed and put to bed, and a bathroom with a very large bathtub in it that has been cleared of all toys that float but lack a motor, and promises secured from everyone else in the house to not come near it for the rest of the night.”

Her face lit up. “We’ve got the good tub?”

He nodded solemnly. “We’ve got the good tub.”

(Eventually they _really_ had to get more than one large tub, but restoration of functional habitability had come before refurbishing which was now sweeping from the east end of the house to the west, and showers had been easier to fix up in the extra bathrooms when they were first starting on rebuilding.)

“I will forgive you the lack of rose petals, then. This time.”

*          *          *

They were both still slick from the bubbles and damp with sweat when Lydia collapsed on Peter’s chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, feeling her still twitching around him as he softened inside of her. Shivering at a tingle of pleasure that slid along his nerves in a quiet aftershock, he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Lifting her head, she kissed him properly, and he relished the familiar taste of her on his tongue. When they parted, he brushed her hair back from her face with a teasing touch. “How was the conference?”

“With the exception of way too many papers and presentations devoted to defending or refuting Cantor’s theory – which is fine for philosophical debate, but not exactly where the field of mathematics should be focusing, because, hello, it has no practical relevance whatsoever – it was good. Ericson is still an idiot.” She huffed a little, a tiny frown tugging at her forehead.

“And your paper saying so?”

A slightly smug smile settled on her lips, smoothing away the frown. “Was very well-received.”

“That’s my girl.”

“How did you boys do with the kids?” She arched an eyebrow at him, a little imperious and yet teasing at the same time.

Peter traced fingers up the dampness of the skin over her spine. “We did fine. The kids were angels.”

“I saw the cushion, Peter.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “I did warn you not to buy anything you were attached to until they were at least five.”

“My child has fangs.”

“Only when he wants to? And you married a wolf, sweetheart. What did you expect? At least they don’t scream the house down.”

She huffed again, shadows flickering in her eyes. It wasn’t any easier, practically, being what she was, but knowing what it was and being able to joke about it actually made it easier to bear. Peter’s smile was understanding, though, as he slid his fingers around her neck, up to cradle her jaw, unable to get enough of her.

“How was Caitlin?”

“She informed me at every meal time that she wanted Scott.”

“Who doesn’t?”

Peter smirked a little, always pleased by little moments of synchronicity between them.

“They asked me to chair a track next year,” Lydia murmured, leaning down to nuzzle at his neck.

With a mock-groan, Peter shifted, rolling them and propping himself up over her. “You said yes.”

“Of course. They clearly need help.” Her smile was a little impish, though, and she sighed when Peter dropped a kiss on her neck, traced downward, over her collarbone, and nibbled at her swollen breasts. “You think you can handle it? With three of them?”

Peter ran his lips lower, and kissed his way over the swell of her stomach, resting his cheek there as he listened to the fast heartbeat there, breathing in the scent of her and the growing baby.

“We’ll be fine,” he assured her, nuzzling a little. “Scott and Isaac can move in and entertain Caitlin and me and the boys will be fine.”

“Oh, you think she’s a boy do you?” Her fingers twisted in his hair, making him look up at her.

“He is absolutely a boy.”

“What’s wrong with having another girl?”

Peter met her narrowed gaze with a wry smile. “Absolutely nothing. Except I’m not sure my heart, or the male population, can handle two of Caitlin.”

“Hmmm…maybe they’ll make it easy on us.”

Peter snorted.

“You should tell her the story, so she learns it from the start. Maybe that’ll help.”

“Like it’s helped Caitlin and her dubbing Scott her own wolf-prince?”

“It’s adorable and you know it.”

“Isaac isn’t going to think so in thirteen or fourteen years.”

Lydia laughed. “We’ll take our chances. Besides…I only heard the ending. Remind me how it begins, and tell us all of it. I want to hear, and she needs to.”

Peter watched her a moment, then ran a hand over the bump of her stomach. Shifting to stretch out on the bed, he pressed another kiss to her skin, then settled in there, lips close and sure his son could hear him in the womb. “All right. But only so he knows what sort of girl to look for…”

Lydia laughed again and ran her fingers through his hair in encouragement.”

“You don’t think he’s too young for the beginning?” He cast a worried glance up at her.

“She’s tough enough to take it…and it makes the ending so much more rewarding.” The warmth in her gaze—and how anyone could ever call her cold-hearted had never made sense to him—lit up all the dark places inside of him, the ones he managed to keep silent most days because of her.

“From the start, then,” he murmured, ducking his head back to the bump. “Once upon a time, in a castle deep in the woods, there lived a big, bad wolf. He hadn’t always been big and bad, but, you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Huntsman? That’s not really quite how it went…”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [There's Gonna be Some Changes in the Way this Story Goes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/916308) by [ladyofbrileith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofbrileith/pseuds/ladyofbrileith)




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